Rich Content Previews for Mastodon Posts are now Supported by iMessage

The Messages app now supports rich previews for Mastodon posts when you share a link to a post in an iMessage conversation, which is a surprise feature of iOS 16.4. This equalizes Apple’s support for Mastodon with Twitter’s long-standing integration for similar tweet balloon previews.

iMessage now retrieves information like the post text, author, and attachments when a link to a Mastodon post is shared and displays it inline in the conversation thread. The standard web link previews that Messages try to retrieve for any web URL go beyond this and do not contain information like the body of a Mastodon post.

Mastodon has gained traction in recent months as Twitter users search for alternatives to Elon Musk’s product decisions, even going so far as to receive Phil Schiller’s endorsement.

Today saw the release of iOS 16.4’s first beta, which is now accessible to developers. New emojis, new features for web apps, UI updates for Apple Music, and more are among the additional new features in iOS 16.4.